VI.
The morning was just what it should be in spite of the croakers, and the immensity of nature had imparted to our spirits much of her buoyancy; so when the train came to a halt, we jumped with alacrity from the little coach, and sought among the people for the human interest, which was as ever very great. The route was dotted with charming stations, each one flying a German and Venezuelan flag in delightful amity—for the Germans impress the South American first with their greatness and then with their friendliness; the mailed hand is shown only as the last resort.
Here were stations green and beflowered, in sweet good order, with fountains and running streams, and booths where we bought ginger cookies and Albert biscuit and cervesa Inglesa and all sorts of fruit; and back of the stations, hints of quaint old churches with distant bells, and gathering about the mother church, blue and white and yellow glimpses of queer old houses. And oh! the colour! The flowering trees! What artist could ever reach the delicacy of the Maria tree, one mass of living pearls. Its branches so full of flower that there seemed to be no room for leaf; the branch only there by sufferance. At La Victoria, where we stop for luncheon, in a curious little café under a confident German flag, our family interpreter disappears, and in a few minutes returns in the likeness of a Thracian god, bedecked with garlands, pink and white. He covers my lap with rarest blossoms, gives them to one and all, and brings into the dusty coach a fragrance of Elysium. I long to keep the flowers for ever; I long to hold that colour in such security that it can never escape; I long to enclose that essence in some secret shrine for ever. And shall I say I have not?